18th Amendment revisit be discouraged; capacity building of provincial governments necessary: Sartaj.

ISLAMABAD -- Former National Security Advisor and public intellectual Sartaj Aziz Monday said that the call for revisiting 18th Amendment should be discouraged rather capacity of the provincial governments needed to be enhanced to deal with the devolved subjects of Education and Health.

Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) with the support of the Australian High commission's Direct Aid Programme organized a virtual seminar session on Comparing Evolution of Federalism in Pakistan and Australia with a group of media and civil society representatives, said a news release.

President PILDAT, Ahmed Bilal Mehboob presented key takeaways from the background paper written by former National Security Advisor who was also the former Federal Minister for Finance, Foreign Affairs and a Development Economist.

Sartaj Aziz who could not attend the session but in his recommendations, emphasised that the duplication of efforts should be avoided between Federal and Provincial Governments in areas such as Health, Agriculture and Population Planning.

He proposed that the role of federal government should be increased in social protection, poverty reduction, higher education and health insurance by better utilisation of the Council of Common Interests (CCI).

The federal government should show leadership by evolving through consensus and approval of CCI whereas a model Local Government (LG) law which should also set time limit of holding LG elections and efforts should be made to increase the federal tax revenues to 15% of...